Introduction to E-Payment: An Essential Piece of the E-Commerce Puzzle

When we look at the whole picture of e-commerce, there are many pieces in the puzzle, including the Internet communication infrastructure, various web and e-commerce application servers, client browsers, products/services, databases, security and firewalls, electronic payment (or e-payment), and many other components. To make an e-commerce web storefront work, one needs to put all these pieces of the puzzle together. The first thing that happens in cyberspace is that the customer goes through the web storefront, and looks for a product/service that is interesting to him (or her). It is clear that after the customer has searched web storefront and identified products or services, the immediate next step is making the payment for the purchase of the products/services that the customer has selected. Obviously, e-payment is essential to e-commerce transactions. Without a successful e-payment step, the e-commerce picture is not complete, and very often it will not work.